Manzanita: seven miles of beach and one good street

Why Manzanita

Manzanita sits at the south end of a long, wide beach with Neahkahnie Mountain standing over the whole thing. Laneda Avenue runs from the highway straight to the sand — a few blocks of bookstore, bakery, coffee, a wine bar, a good grocery — and then the town just stops and the beach begins. That's the layout, and it's hard to improve on.

What makes it more than a beach town is what's around it. Oswald West and Short Sand Beach for surfing or watching surfers, ten minutes north. Nehalem Bay State Park for kayaking, biking and crabbing, right next door. Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock a half hour up 101 for a day trip. And the mountain itself, which you can climb in a morning. Our Manzanita guide has the details.

A weekend here, more or less

Mornings start upstairs, where the windows are. Coffee, the mountain doing its thing with the clouds, and nobody in a hurry. Then the walk down to the beach — eight or ten minutes, the last of it through the dunes — and a long stretch of sand that goes as far as you want it to.

Afternoons are for whatever kind of trip you're on. A hike up Neahkahnie for the view down the whole coast. A yoga session in the studio with the door open. A drive to Tillamook for cheese and ice cream, which never gets old. Then back to the covered porches, a fire, dinner at the big table, and the cedar hot tub while the light goes. If the plan was to reconnect with people you don't see enough, this house tends to make that happen without anyone trying.

Puffin Lane

Puffin Lane is a reverse-living house — bedrooms down, living up — so the kitchen and the big windows get the view across the golf course to Neahkahnie Mountain. Four bedrooms, three baths, including a king suite with its own bath. Three covered porches and decks, a cedar hot tub, and a separate yoga studio that becomes whatever the group needs it to be.

It's a home we designed for couples travelling together, girls' weekends, wellness trips, and families with grown kids and grandparents in the mix — anyone who cares about the feel of a place. One important thing: the Manzanita permit allows seven people total on the property at any time, and we hold to that. Check availability, or see all our homes.

Getting here

From Portland it's a little under two hours: west on Highway 26 over the Coast Range, then south on 101 past Cannon Beach and through the tunnel at Arch Cape. It's one of the prettiest drives to the coast, especially the last ten minutes with the ocean opening up below Neahkahnie. From Seattle plan on about five hours. From Eugene it's around three.

Manzanita has a real grocery store, so you don't need to stock up before you leave. Do pick up anything specific you'll want — the town is small, and the store closes earlier than you'd expect.

A note on seasons

Summer brings the farmers market, the crowds on Laneda, and long warm evenings on the porch. It's great, and it books early. We'd gently point you toward the shoulder seasons too. Fall is often the clearest, calmest weather of the year on this coast. Winter is storm season, when the porches earn their roofs and the hot tub becomes the main event. Spring means whale migration and the beach mostly to yourself.

The house was designed with all of it in mind — big windows for the weather, covered space for the rain, a tub for the cold. There isn't a bad month to be here.